Peter Geoffrey Foster (9 October 1916 – 7 December 1994) was an English businessman and amateur

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er. He played in 30

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

matches for

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

between 1936 and 1946.Peter Foster

CricInfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

. Retrieved 10 March 2017.

Early life

Foster was born at Beckenham in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

in 1916, the son of Geoffrey and Vera Foster.Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part Two: 1919–1939'', pp. 81–82.
Available online
at the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. Retrieved 30 December 2021.) His father was a businessman who was serving in the East Riding Yeomanry at the time of Foster's birth. He had played cricket for

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...

and Kent and was one of seven brothers all of whom played first-class cricket for Worcestershire.Carlaw, ''op. cit.'', pp. 79–80. Retrieved 30 December 2021.Lewis P (2013) ''For Kent and Country'', pp. 173–176. Brighton: Reveille Press. Foster, Peter Geoffrey
Obituaries in 1994, ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

'', 1995. Retrieved 30 December 2021. Foster was educated at

Winchester College Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of the ...

before going up to

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

in 1935. He had played cricket at school, headed the Winchester batting averages in 1934 and played for the Public Schools at

Lord's Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and ...

in 1935. During the same year he made his first appearance for Kent's Second XI.Peter Foster
CricketArchive. Retrieved 30 December 2021.

Cricket career

Foster made his first-class debut for Oxford in 1936, playing against

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

The Parks The Oxford University Parks, commonly referred to locally as the University Parks, or just The Parks, is a large parkland area slightly northeast of the city centre in Oxford, England. The park is bounded to the east by the River Cherwell, thoug ...

. He played a total of five matches for the Oxford side but did not win a

Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...

and was unable to win a consistent place in a strong Oxford side, although he continued to play occasionally for Kent in the

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

. He also played

racquets Rackets or racquets is an indoor racket sport played in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada. The sport is infrequently called "hard rackets", to distinguish it from the related sport of squash (also called "squash rackets"). Hist ...

and

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

for the university, winning Blues in both sports. The majority of Foster's first-class cricket―a total of 24 matches―was played for Kent during the 1939 season. He played in almost all of the county's matches, scoring 725 runs at an average of 19.59. His only first-class century, a score of 107

not out In cricket, a batter is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batter is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at t ...

, came against

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

during the season, and he made half-centuries against

Glamorgan , HQ = Cardiff , Government = Glamorgan County Council (1889–1974) , Origin= , Code = GLA , CodeName = Chapman code , Replace = * West Glamorgan * Mid Glamorgan * South Glamorgan , Motto ...

and

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

both of which were praised by '' Wisden''. Foster played club cricket for sides such as

Free Foresters Free Foresters Cricket Club is an English amateur cricket club, established in 1856 for players from the Midland counties of England. It is a 'wandering' (or nomadic) club, having no home ground. The Free Foresters were founded by the Rev. Willi ...

, Harlequins, Southborough and Band of Brothers. He played in Kent's first

County Championship The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...

match of 1946, but business commitments meant that he was not able to appear again for the county.

War service and later life

Foster joined the Royal West Kent Regiment during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, before transferring to the

Queen's Royal Regiment The Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey) was a line infantry regiment of the English and later the British Army from 1661 to 1959. It was the senior English line infantry regiment of the British Army, behind only the Royal Scots in the British Ar ...

. He rose to the rank of

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

during the war. Following the war, Foster worked on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

. He was President of Kent County Cricket Club in 1991 and died following a heart attack in 1994 aged 78.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Foster, Peter 1916 births 1994 deaths Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Cricketers from the London Borough of Bromley People from Beckenham English cricketers Kent cricketers Oxford University cricketers